By Beth Houck, VP, Customer Experience, SA Ignite
Twitter: @saignite
Host: Voices in Value-based Care
Hashtag: #VoicesInVBC
Every health system and medical practice with MIPS eligible clinicians is well-aware of the time and cost associated with program compliance. Understanding and managing the program is a significant undertaking that, at times yields little perceived value relative to the multitude of “To-Do’s” on your list.
Through our work with clients, SA Ignite has identified five ways you can leverage MIPS for success. You can also watch our latest ABC’s of the QPP webinar, Getting More from Your MIPS Investment where we dove into the details of how to leverage MIPS internally and externally, and elicited perspectives from attendees on their MIPS performance.
1) Promote your high scores!
As you know, MIPS scores go public in 4Q18. Online review purveyors like Yelp, Google and Health Grades will certainly leverage this data, and you can too as part of your marketing and digital engagement. With 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 every day according to Pew Research and the Social Security Administration, Medicare Part B revenue will only increase and get more competitive. In the age of mobile apps and online engagement, a strong digital presence with compelling information is essential – nine out of ten patients aged 60+ said they will choose a new provider after seeing negative online reviews according to a survey by Doctor.com. You have limited control of online reviews, but you have complete control of your performance in CMS Quality Payment Programs.
2) Use your high scores to negotiate better contracts or compete for position in exclusive or narrow networks
The MIPS program includes hundreds of quality measures that are core to effectively caring for patients and as a result span programs. As the healthcare industry moves closer to value-based care, you can use MIPS as a training ground to improve performance and demonstrate success. Fact-based quality performance data can and should be used to justify more lucrative contracts with commercial payers and land in narrow networks that have and will continue to form.
3) Attract and retain the best and brightest clinicians and partnerships
A higher MIPS score will make you a more attractive partner and reinforces the value of your practice in acquisition. You can differentiate your practice by demonstrating leadership in the movement to value-based care. You can also show that you have the infrastructure in place that allows clinicians to succeed in complex compliance programs as a group or as individual contributors.
4) Motivate clinicians with organizational goals and peer comparisons
MIPS measures overlap with measures in other value-based programs. If you align your MIPS measures to the goals of your practice or with other high-profile value-based payment programs, you can motivate clinicians towards achieving a common set of goals. By nature, clinicians are competitive and want to be known for excellence in quality of care. Aligning goals and measuring across programs offers a way to illustrate success. Being able to dive into the details of individual performance is critical in this tactic because not all clinicians are able to perform well on some measures because they aren’t relevant to their practice.
5) Take a step toward a performance-based compensation model
You know you need to move toward performance-based compensation, but it’s not a clear-cut journey, and if not done correctly can result in disaster. The behavior change needed to accomplish it comes from a broad set of clinicians, not just doctors. The biggest barrier to moving toward performance-based compensation is lack of good data. MIPS provides a stepping stone of data to support your analysis for performance-based compensation.
[callout title=”Download” link=”https://www.healthitanswers.net/white-papers/download-faqs-mips/” new_tab=”yes” icon=”hb-moon-download-5″]Download 10 FAQs About the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) – Updated for 2018[/callout]
This article was originally published on SA Ignite and is republished here with permission.